Starcraft: Legacy
by Fabrosi
Summary: This tale follows the rise of one gamer and his incredible, many-year, danger-fraught journey to the top.
1. Chapter 1: Casual

Chapter 1: Casual

As Hank marched onward with his comrades through the barren wasteland of a cold, desolate planet, he fought the urge to break from his squad and run like Hell. He'd told himself up to this point that he wouldn't get scared when the time came for him to see his first battle, and yet… here he was, his nerves threatening to get the better of him as his steps became unsteady. He felt horribly lopsided.

Though it was little comfort to him, no one seemed to notice that he was literally shaking in his boots. They were all fully focused on the upcoming attack on the zerg, a highly evolved alien race that each and every one of them wished he could be separated from by many, many light years. Today, however, avoiding them just wasn't an option. In the long run, they had no choice but to fight.

The soldiers came to a moderately steep incline that served as a narrow pass between two massive, sheer cliff walls that extended some distance in each direction. Their inability to see past the ridge at the top of the incline instilled dread into them, but, knowing they had no choice, they pressed on.

"Be on your guard," said the squad leader. "The map says the zerg are right up this—"

-He was interrupted by a horrible scuttling sound. Small but fast zerg creatures (zerglings, they were called) clambered over the ridge, coming at them with terrifying speed.

"Don't let them surround you!" the leader shouted as the men opened fire, killing as many zerglings as they could before the fiendish things closed in. Fortunately, they had been marching in a somewhat wide formation, so they now formed something of a wall, which kept any the zerglings from circling around behind them. A few got close enough to start chipping away at their armor, but these were picked off before any casualties occurred. The fear in Hank's heart began to lessen as they pushed up the ramp. Suddenly, behind him, he heard the familiar sound of low-power jetpacks carrying small, manned mechs (known as "SCVs") up the incline behind him. He had no idea what they were doing here, since SCVs were designed for noncombat purposes, but no one else objected to their presence, so he shrugged it off as he and the other soldiers moved out of their way to let them through, and then followed behind them.

Hank's stomach immediately began to churn as he beheld the sight past the top of the ridge. A large patch of flat ground was covered with some strange, writhing purple growth that began several yards in front of him. In its center was some sort of massive, organic bulge, like a parasitic growth on the land itself. Some vaguely stingray-shaped creatures glided around across the purple stuff. Just as he was wondering if his squad could take them, the SCVs charged forward, speeding towards the aliens as if to attack them.

"No… Hell no, they're not going to try and"—

-They did. Using tools that were intended for mining natural resources and building structures, the workers started attacking the zerg creatures, which, to Hank's great surprise, began to flee.

"Come on! Don't just sit back and watch!" Hank snapped out of his shocked state as one of his fellow soldiers urged him on. As they chased down the zerg, killing them one at a time, Hank realized just how useful it was to have the SCVs here. Some zerglings emerged from the main zerg—structure, or whatever it was, but they were quickly surrounded and killed as quickly as they had been born. Hank felt giddy with excitement as he realized that this meant sure victory. The zerg were supposed to be terrifying, but now that he was here, fighting them felt like nothing… it was easy, it was satisfying, it was—

"—OP!"

Without looking up from his computer screen, Jason replied, "Dude, you didn't scout at _all_. Don't complain about losing to something that you failed to scout."

Jason and his friend, Mark, were playing a game with each other on two computers in the same room. Mark's eleven-year-old brother, David, was watching them with curiosity. "What's 'OP' mean?" he asked them.

"It means it's a strategy he can with every time, even though it takes no skill," explained Mark. "He attacked with his workers, which you're not even supposed to do, but he still won because marines are the best units in the game. There was nothing I could do."

"Well," retorted Jason, "_maybe_ you could have not engaged at the ramp like a noob."

"What's a noob?"

"Someone who doesn't know how to play."

The game was called Starcraft II, and Mark (along with most of his friends) had recently gotten it after learning how popular it was. Shortly after, he and Jason had taken to playing it every day after school.

"…Alright, man," said Jason, after Mark had declined to respond to his taunt. "I should probably go do homework. See you."

As he was on his way out, David asked, "Hey, Mark? Can I try playing?"

"Yeah, sure." He took off his headphones and got up from his chair, but kept his hand on the mouse as he did so, clicking through the menu screens. "Here, I'll put you against an easy AI and tell you what to do."

David diligently clicked wherever his brother instructed him to, gradually building up an army of marines. "You can build them by clicking on the button here," explained Mark, pointing to the lower-right corner of the screen, "but it's better if you just press 'a'." Figuring that if Mark said it was better, he should probably do it, David chose the second method. He quickly realized that many of the things you could do by clicking, you could do much faster with buttons on the keyboard—a few of which he found on his own before Mark even pointed them out.

After a few minutes of watching David learn to make all the units, Mark announced, "Alright, I think you have enough guys to attack now. You want to send them here." He pointed to a dark area on the minimap, which, he had explained earlier, let you see all the places you could go without having to scroll.

David was caught by surprise, when, while on their way to the enemy base, his armies were attacked by a large group of zealots and stalkers. "What do I do? What do I do?" he asked frantically. Mark laughed.

"Don't worry," he said. "It's just protoss. You can kill them." Sure enough, David's troops fought off the computer's with no trouble, and continued to march into the protoss base and start destroying buildings. To David's shock, the computer sent him a chat message. It read "gg". A box appeared, prompting him to accept the enemy's surrender, which he did.

"There you go," said his brother proudly. "That was actually pretty good for your first game. As you get better, you can play against harder computers, but you should eventually play against other people, too, so you can get used to dealing with cheese."

"Cheese?"

"Yeah, like when they use cheap, no-skill strategies that let them win instantly. It's part of the game."

David still wasn't sure he understood the concept of "cheese", but he was determined to keep getting better at the game. "Can I try a harder computer now?" he asked. "That one was way too easy."

"Sure," replied Mark, "but you'll have to figure it out on your own. I think I have homework, too."

"Alright." David started another game, this time a harder difficulty setting. He couldn't quite remember everything he was supposed to do, and ended up losing. He decided that his luck might be better with a different race, so he selected "Protoss" and started a new game. All of the units were different, which of course made everything even more confusing, and he lost again. He groaned once in frustration, and then quit the game, deciding that Pokémon would provide a more enjoyable gaming experience.

The next day, however, he tried playing Starcraft II again, determined to beat the harder AIs. He experimented with every race, wanting to learn all of their strengths and weaknesses. As he moused through the zerg building list, trying to guess what each building was for, he heard his brother enter the door behind him.

"You really like that game, huh?"

"Yup. I can't win on hard though."

"Well, then play it on an easier difficulty."

"No. That's boring."

Mark watched his younger brother play for a while, impressed by how quickly he was learning. After two more games, David seemed to have developed a cursory knowledge of most of the game's units, and he was gradually becoming able to last longer against the computer. However, he seemed unaware of his own improvement.

"Why do I keep losing?" he asked, frustrated.

"You're getting there," Mark assured him. "Just make sure to keep spending your money, cause it doesn't do you any good just sitting there. Also, you should try expanding by building more bases."

And so, over the next few weeks, David would play Starcraft II every day after school: sometimes under his brother's supervision, sometimes by himself. He soon decided that zerg was his favorite race, if only because the units made funny noises, and the buildings just looked so _squishy _and _fun._ He dutifully followed Mark's instructions on the proper order in which to make buildings and units, (the "build order", he called it) performing better and better with each game until one day he finally achieved his goal.

"Mark! Come in here!"

"What is it?" asked Mark, approaching the computer.

"I did it! I won on hard!" Mark couldn't help but laugh at the sight his brother, who was giddy with excitement.

"Awesome! Y'know, maybe you should have your own account to play on. I have a spare one you could use."

And so, Mark logged into his second account, and wrote down the account information for David so he would be able to log in later. It was nice, he thought, that his brother was getting interested in the same game he liked.

Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, in a small room inside of a grey, unremarkable building, a group of uniformed men were seated in a few rows of chairs as the speaker at the front of the room used a baton to point to a photo of a young man projected on the screen beside him.

"This is Lee Young Ho, a Starcraft pro-gamer," he said in a language that wasn't English. "In the Starcraft community, he goes by the name 'Flash' and commands a great deal of respect—one might even say worship. " He pressed a button, changing the slide to a picture of Flash sitting at a computer, opposite another pro-gamer, surrounded by thousands of screaming fans.

"This," he explained, "is Flash at the OSL, the most-watched e-sports league in Korea. Normally, he travels with a substantial entourage, but he has recently announced that as a publicity stunt, he will be walking by himself to the next OSL, starting from his home."

"I would like to interrupt," said someone in the audience. "Of what is importance to us is a youth who is famous for playing computer games?"

"Because of the importance of e-sports in South Korea," explained the speaker, "he is one of their most beloved celebrities. What we have now, thanks to the absence of anyone guarding him, is an opportunity to send agents in to kidnap him and hold him hostage."

Once the assembly understood, they began to applaud. "A most brilliant plan," one of them commented.

And so it was that on that day, a plan was set in motion that would change the face of the Starcraft e-sports scene forever.


	2. Chapter 2: Practice League

Chapter 2: Practice League

Sean Plott struggled to sit upright as he sleepily scrolled through his YouTube messages. He felt only a slight twinge of guilt as he deleted a large batch of "Keep up the good work!"s and "UR AWESOME!"s, leaving behind messages that were at least somewhat specific in nature.

_This is the part of being an internet celebrity that no one warns you about,_ he thought to himself as he rubbed his eyes. There were still hundreds of messages to go, and he wondered if it wouldn't be easier just to delegate this task to a handful of moderators from his live-stream.

The thought was interrupted, however, as one message in particular caught his attention. The avatar accompanying it was of a very pretty girl, and the subject line read "Day9, am I want you." Though he had no reason at all to believe that the girl's avatar was an accurate representation of her, he clicked the message, hoping it might entertain him for a few seconds.

Day9… your are amazing star craft caster. I am constantly sway by your rough manly charm, rug looks, and beautiful eye lashes. All though I am only simple Russian girl, who play protoss, hardly able to 4 gate, I can tell that you having great knowledge; and I am impress.

Please… consider talk to me. It required great of courage for me to sending you these message. I try hard to English, but still difficult. Consider strongly, add me on M.S.N. . Anxious awaiting hope,

-Mariya

Sean stared at the message, rereading it again and again, nonplussed, before he burst out laughing. "Nice try, internet," he said aloud. "Nice try."

As he sipped his coffee, he realized that it was about time for him to start preparing to stream his show online, so he set about combing his hair, checking his appearance in the mirror, reminding himself where on his computer his replays were, and coordinating with the chat moderators.

Meanwhile, in Oregon, Mark was eagerly awaiting Day9's stream. "Hurry up, David!" he called to his brother.

"I'm trying!" David racked his brain for the answers to his pre-algebra homework problems, knowing on some vague level that something very important and Starcraft-related was one the line. "I have, like, five more," he said.

Mark was calmed somewhat by David's status report. "Okay, good. Remember, if you don't finish them, you can just tell Mom you did, and then you can finish them later, alright?"

As it turned out, there was no need for such trickery; David finished the last of the problems and rushed over to the computer.

"It'll be another couple of minutes," explained Mark.

"What are we watching, again?" asked David.

"Day9's livestream. He's this really cool commentator who knows all about Starcraft, 'cause he plays it at the really high levels. He posts recordings of his daily streams to YouTube, but it's way more fun to watch them in real time."

After a brief, tense, silence, the Day9's voice signaled that the show had begun:

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Today is March 17th, 2012, and this is the Day9 daily number four hundred and something-something—whatever, today's Monday, so who cares, right?" He grinned, but the expression quickly faded. "I do have some very strange and upsetting news, though: for some reason, Flash, also known as _the best gamer to ever live_, has gone missing on his way to the OSL over in Korea. Apparently, what might have happened to him is a total mystery, though we do know that he was walking there instead of taking a plane. My best wishes go out to him, and like all of you, I sincerely hopes he turns up soon, but you know what? The show must go on."

-"Wait," said Mark, "Flash is missing? What?"

David had never heard of Flash, but the thought of the best gamer to ever live mysteriously disappearing was certainly unsettling.

"…showing replays of players telling their opponents every time they make a new building," Day9 continued. "Now, that doesn't include supply depots, pylons or defensive structures—just production buildings, main buildings, upgrade buildings, that kind of stuff. As usual, our first replay will be the intro to the daily, and here in the top left corner we have…"

As they watched the daily, Mark explained to David what was going on: every Monday, Day9 would have a special show called "Funday Monday," for which players had to send in replays of games where they followed a particular constraint, purely for the sake of making the game more entertaining or interesting. It didn't matter whether they played well, or even whether they won—as long as the game was fun to watch, it had a chance of ending up on the show.

The next day at school, David told his friends about his latest Starcraft-related experiences.

"…and we got to watch it live, with like thousands of people all talking about the stuff that he was saying… Here, I'll show you the video."

After a furtive backwards glance to see if any teachers were watching, David went to YouTube on one of the school's computers and searched for "Day9".

"This is probably gonna be too complicated for me," said Ethan, a pale, dark-haired boy. "My sister says Starcraft is too hard if you're not Asian."

"Really?" asked David.

"Yeah, 'cause their AMP"—

-"APM."

-"Yeah, that. It's too high, she says."

David wondered what being Asian had to do with playing Starcraft, but it was encouraging to know that he and his brother had an edge.

They started watching the Daily, but unfortunately the teacher started to walk towards them so they hastily closed it. David resolved to watch more of Day9's videos when he got home.

"Do you think Day9 could beat the computer on the hardest difficulty?" David asked his Mark over dinner. Their parents listened silently, mildly amused that both their older son and their younger son were interested in the same game.

"Yeah, probably," replied Mark. "I think he's in masters or grandmasters."

"What does that mean?"

"There are seven leagues in Starcraft: bronze, silver, gold, platinum, diamond, masters, and grandmasters."

"What league am I in?"

"Well, you haven't been placed yet. Once you play some practice games against other people, you can do your placement matches, and it'll put you in a league based on your results."

After dinner, Mark watched David play his first game against another person: someone called "Jenny20", who played terran. David felt a sudden rush of nervousness as he sent his probes to the mineral patch—something about the fact that he was playing a real person made the stakes feel higher than usual. A message reading "gl hf" appeared at the bottom the screen.

"That means 'good luck, have fun'," explained Mark.

Tension seeped into David's wrists as he built up an army, waiting for Jenny20 to attack his base. Would he be ready in time? What kind of force would she have?

"You should scout," Mark suggested. "Send a probe to her base." David complied, but the probe was shot by a small group of marines. He thought it looked like a large force, but David said "You can take that", so he sent in his army.

His zealots, stalkers and sentries slaughtered the marines with surprising ease, prompting a "gg" from jenny20, shortly followed by a notification letting him know he'd won the game.

"Alright!" cheered Mark, high-fiving him. David dived into another practice game (which he won), followed by another (which he lost), after which it was time to go to bed.

That weekend, David played more practice matches than he could count, rapidly improving his win rate until his mother made him go outside. His thoughts were still on Starcraft, though, as he meandered through a short woodland trail, idly using a stick to poke at plants and flip over rocks. _What league will I be in? _He wondered. _What league is _Mark_ in? Could he win against Day9?_ It occurred to him that since Day9 wasn't Asian, Mark might stand a chance.

As the boy dreamed of one day becoming a great Starcraft player, renowned across all of YouTube, Lee Young Ho sat tied to a chair, blindfolded, in the basement of a large, apartment-like building roughly on the other side of the world. Hassled and confused as he was, he knew with dread certainty that his captors saw his very life as massive leverage which they might use to advance their sordid plans.


	3. Chapter 3: Placement

Chapter 3: Placement

David's twelfth birthday caught him entirely by surprise. He was so engrossed in Starcraft during the weeks leading up to it that the usual anticipation for presents and time with his friends eluded him, and his parents were subtle enough in finding what presents he'd like that they hadn't tipped him off. He wanted to play Starcraft with his friends, but there weren't enough computers, so he simply pitted each of them against the easy AI in turn.

"You need more barracks," he urged his friend Jared, who was still struggling to understand the controls. "You have a ton of minerals to spend."

After everyone had had a turn, they all went upstairs to play Mario Kart Wii. As David steered Princess Peach's mach bike across the course, he noticed how the game catered to players that were losing: they would get extremely useful items, like golden mushrooms and Bullet Bills, from item blocks, rather than weaker items like banana peels and green shells. It didn't make sense, he thought, to reward players for losing. If they had screwed up badly enough to fall behind, why did they deserve to catch up?

That night, David played his first placement match. He decided to play zerg (his favorite race at the moment) and was pitted against a terran. Remembering a piece of advice from his brother, he quickly built a spawning pool, followed by a baneling nest. After morphing his zerglings into banelings outside of his opponent's base, he sent them in to attack, his hand shaking slightly as inexplicable adrenaline coursed through his veins. The banelings in front exploded as they made contact with a group of marines, who were quickly dissolved by the creatures' acid. Before long, the enemy was defenseless, and it was simply a matter of cleaning up the base with ravenous zerglings.

The next morning, (for it was a Sunday) David played his second placement match—_four to go,_ he thought as the game started. This time, he was up against another zerg, and got defeated by banelings. _How did he build them so fast? _he wondered. He started a new game, his nervousness boiling up inside him. It was another zerg, and he still couldn't remember the best way to deal with banelings. After a moment's hesitation he decided to just build banelings himself.

As it turned out, however, his opponent _wasn't _making banelings, but zerglings. David made short work of them, eliciting a "bg" followed by his opponent's surrender.

His nerves were threatening to get the best of him, so he got up and got himself a soda. He returned and began his fourth placement match. Just as he was successfully fending off a protoss attack with his roaches, Mark came up behind him.

"I'm gonna beat him," explained David without turning around. Sure enough, he won the battle with a handful of roaches left over, and immediately began marching them towards the enemy base.

"You shouldn't attack his base yet," Mark warned him. "You have like a thousand minerals that you should be spending on more roaches."

"No, it's fine. I killed his army."

"He'll have another one."

David said nothing, but only stared stoically at the screen as his roaches marched into the protoss base and were slaughtered by zealots and stalkers.

"Told you."

Hoping to make up for the loss, David started building an expansion, but soon found it under siege by the enemy. He scrolled around his base, looking everywhere for his roaches before he realized that he didn't have any left. His stomach sank as he realized all hope was lost, and he grudgingly typed "gg".

His palms were sweating as he began the final placement match. Mark said something about an "extractor trick", but he was too focused on the game to understand what he was hearing. Blood pounded in his ears as he watched his first zerglings scout get shot down by marines, and every inch of his skin tingled as he did his best to macro.

"Get gas," his brother reminded him. "You need those banelings right away, before he can bunker up."

"I know, I know."

Unfortunately, an scv spotted his baneling nest before he was ready to attack, and by the time his banelings arrived at the terran base there were already three bunkers in place. Not wanting to waste his units against such strong defenses, he waited just outside the enemy ramp as he gathered more forces. Sweat dripped down his face as he built an expansion and rallied all of his banelings across the map—and then, at last, it was time.

He gripped the mouse fervently as he launched the attack that would surely decide his placement. Just as he was moving up the ramp, he spotted something on the minimap that made his heart plummet all the way down to his toes.

There, at his mineral line, was a banshee.

He tried to fight it with his queen, but to no avail—it was simply too strong, and soon his drones were being attacked as well. He tried to run away, but as another banshee appeared, he knew deep down that it was over. With a deep, shaking sigh, he surrendered.

His heart rate skyrocketed as he leaned forward and stared at the screen, anxious to see what league he'd been placed in. A notification appeared, telling him that he had placed into…

…silver league.


	4. Chapter 4: MLG

Chapter 4: MLG

Despite his brother's assurances that he'd done fine, David spent the next few days disappointed at his placement, since he was in the second-lowest league. However, he gradually started to notice that many of his opponents were in gold, which suggested he might be able to move up before much longer.

As the days went by, he continued to play Starcraft every day, and Mark tantalized him with promises of going to MLG, a video game tournament that would be held in Los Angeles in a few months. Day9 was going to be there, along with some of the highest-ranked professional players, and David couldn't wait to see them all in person. He decided that if he trained hard enough, he might make it to gold league before MLG. Mark wasn't so sure, however.

"I think you have to wait until the season ends to move up a league," he explained, "and that might not happen in time for MLG. Don't worry, though—it'll still be tons of fun."

Over time, David developed an inkling of just how little he knew about Starcraft; though he could name all the units, buildings and their hotkeys, the myriad ways in which they could be used and combined were incredibly complex. He would watch Day9's videos to improve his understanding, but he suspected that becoming truly proficient at the game might take years—not that this would stop him.

He would often play with his friends from school, but quickly realized that they were all terrible. He began letting them win against him from time to time to ensure that they could have as much fun as he did—however, he sometimes found that he would win by accident due to overestimating their abilities.

When he played online, he realized what a cold, hard place the internet could be. His opponents would call him a scrub if he lost, a noob if he won, a dumbass if his connection to the server crashed. Some people, he realized, would look for any excuse to be mad.

Weeks passed, and just as David was beginning to forget about it, MLG came, conveniently coinciding with his school's winter break. For the entire duration of the car ride there, David and Mark discussed Starcraft, right up until they arrived at the hotel they'd be staying at. It was the first time either of them would be staying somewhere away from home for an entire week, and they endured a barrage of warnings from their parents not to venture too far from the hotel, to be careful whom they talked to, to call home every day and confirm that they were doing all right.

Eventually, however, they were able to escape, and they made their way to the building where the tournament would be held. Once they were inside, David beheld a wonderland of computers, many running Starcraft or similar games, all laid out in rows that gave off a fantastic light made up of the stuff of strange and otherworldly dreams. All around the two brothers was the raw electrical brilliance of their champions, the liquid joy that seeped from some of the world's finest games, the heady smell of unwashed gamers.

David was home.

"C'mon," said Mark, momentarily snapping him out of his reverie. "Let's go play some 2v2."

This year, a special matchmaking system had been set up specifically to pit all participating amateur gamers at MLG against one another, to the exclusion of those laddering outside of the tournament. The winner of each of several divisions, Mark explained, would be determined by a complex system based on wins and losses against players of varying skill levels after several games, and would receive a $20 gift certificate.

"That doesn't sound like very much."

"Well, the pros get a lot more if they win. These games aren't really that big of a deal."

Once they were registered, Mark and David sat down at two adjacent computers and began their first team game. "Don't worry if they blow up a bunch of our buildings," Mark assured his brother. "I can send you resources, so we can recover as long as we keep our workers alive."

Once Mark had sent his probes and David had sent his drones to mine, there was a tense silence as they wondered how they would fare against their opponents, who were both terran. After a few minutes, they were attacked unexpectedly by reapers, who used their jetpacks to sneak into Mark's base from the side. However, his stalkers made short work of the fragile units, and soon David and Mark were able to march their armies to victory against their opponents' poorly defended bases.

They lost their second game, along with the third. As the fourth game was loading, Mark gave David a warning: "Oh, watch out. This guy has a Kerrigan portrait." He pointed to an icon of a red-haired woman next to the name "Fabrosi."

"What does that mean?" asked David as the game started.

"You can only get it by beating the game on the hardest difficulty."

"So he's a pro?"

"No, lots of people can beat the game on brutal—it's just that _I_ can't. Anyways, this 'Guillermo' guy just has a starter portrait, so we can just focus on him."

"Oh."

A few seconds later, they were surprised by a massive rush of SCVs and charging in and attacking David's workers. He tried to fight them off, but his workers were outnumbered nearly two to one, and so he fled towards Mark's base. As the two of them struggled to outmaneuver the enemy's bizarre rush, they were baffled by the sight of a massive command center floating into their base, followed shortly by another.

"trololololol," proclaimed Guillermo triumphantly. Soon, the enemy command centers had both landed next to David's, and the enemy SCVs commenced stealing his minerals.

"Oh my God," muttered Mark under his breath, "these guys are _such_ noobs."

The SCVs moved with incredible synchronization—it was as if the two players had spent several weeks perfecting worker rushing, and only worker rushing. As David tried to chase them away from his minerals, they immediately attacked his drones, and he lost two of them as he attempted to flee.

"Let's keep our workers together until I can get a gateway up," instructed Mark. "Don't let them surround."

Unfortunately, Fabrosi noticed Mark's attempted gateway and promptly started attacking the pylon that was providing it with power. Despite the brothers' best efforts, the pylon went down, leaving the gateway useless. To make matters worse, it seemed that their opponents had been working on production buildings of their own, for their workers soon found themselves under fire from marines.

"u guys are such noobs," typed Mark in exasperation.

"ur the noob," retorted Guillermo. "gtfo scrub."

"go back 2 neopets," concurred Fabrosi.

Before long, David and Mark had lost all of their units, and their buildings shortly followed. Rather than surrender, they stayed in the game until their opponents had finished destroying everything, each of them typing "gg" at the last second.

David looked all around, trying to spot the idiots he'd just lost to, but the crowd was too dense and too large. He shrugged and readied himself for the next game. An hour or so later, they were done playing, and, as they'd expected, they ended up leaving with no gift certificate. They spent a few minutes searching for the pro players, but it was getting late, and the eventually gave up and left to get dinner.

The next day, they got up at 6 o'clock sharp to eat breakfast with the intent of saving as much time as possible to meet their heroes.

Unfortunately, the pros were all backstage, shielded from prying eyes, so they waited patiently until the first round of the tournament began. David was thrilled to see that Day9 would be commentating on the game alongside Artosis, another famous Starcraft caster. As they watched one game after another, Mark amazed his brother with the sheer number of names he could name: that guy was called Idra, and over there was HuK, and Boxer, and Select, KikiKawaii, and he was pretty sure that was Jinro, and that one was White-Ra…

David found himself transfixed by the battles playing out on the large screen at the front of the room—he tried to memorize every build order he could, study every subtle nuance, imagine himself pulling off every strategy. There were insane rushes, masterful drops, 1-1-1 builds, unbelievable blink stalker micro, flawless zerg macro that coated the map in creep like a massive purple tide flooding the map. These players were all champions, kings among men as far as David was concerned, their player booths like thrones where they might sit and show the world the nature of true skill.

Hours later, the final match commenced: Select versus Idra. When David saw that the latter was playing zerg, he immediately found himself rooting for him, and felt a surge of joy every time Idra's army repelled Select's, and lurch of fear every time it was shelled by Select's tanks. For a while, the game looked as though it could just as easily go either way—Idra had control of more of the map, but Select had a solid siege line set up and continually launched drops on Idra's bases. The players' armies were like two ferocious waves crashing against each other, dispersing and reforming as Idra's perfect macro was pitted against Select's impeccable micro. Roaches melted marines, hellions incinerated zerglings, tanks popped scores of banelings, and soon it was ultralisks against thors as Idra tried to buy enough time to tech to broodlords.

Idra fell back, prepared to defend until he could get corruptors ready and begin morphing them, but as soon as he did, Select simultaneously launches two large drops on the two of Idra's expansions that were furthest from each other. The expansions went down, and Select, who spotted a small group of corruptors, scrambled a sizable fleet of vikings to bring them down. Soon, the time had come for Select to launch his final, massive attack, which Idra resisted for as long as he could before leaving the game without warning, too enraged to type "gg".

"…and _there it is,_ ladies and gentlemen," laughed Day9, over the deafening roar of the crowd's cheering, "yet another _incredible_ ragequit by Idra, which means of course that Idra is the winner of this year's MLG!"

The raw excitement of the moment made David dizzy, and the next few minutes were something of a blur: there was sound and commotion everywhere, high-fives and chest bumps, and soon he and his brother were stumbling away, and Mark was saying something about perhaps getting to meet the pros…

…and they did. One struggle through a massive swarm of people later, David found himself momentarily face to face with Idra, holding out a piece of paper and a pen and shyly muttering something incomprehensible. Idra gave him an exasperated smile, along with an autograph, and then he was back in the sea of excited gamer fans, where he drifted for a minute before washing ashore back outside the crowd.

"It was Idra!" David kept shouting as he stumbled alongside his brother, back towards the hotel. "I was _right_ in front of him!"

Mark laughed. "Yeah, it's pretty cool seeing them in person, huh?"

MLG lasted a few days longer, and there were other games played, but David only had eyes for Starcraft. He would play against his brother, losing consistently, and he would ladder, and he would walk to random strangers and challenge them to games, which amused Mark to no end.

Eventually, however, MLG came to an end, and as their parents drove them home, David told his brother that he wanted to be a pro player someday.

"Well, you'll have to practice pretty hard. Those guys play for hours and hours every day."

"I don't care. I'll practice as much as it takes."

"Well, if you want to be a pro player, you'll also need a cool name."

David blinked in confusion. "What's wrong with 'David'?"

"You need a handle—you know, like 'Destiny', or 'CombatEx'."

That night, he sat at his computer rubbing the sleepiness from his eyes as he reached the last step of acquiring a free name change for his account. He thought about his experiences with Starcraft, about the pros who had set the bar for playing the game at its highest level, about the things Mark had taught him, and about the storied history that the game surely had. He realized that he would be part of the next generation of Starcraft players, that he would inherit that which those before him had striven so hard to create. His mind was made up, and he typed in the name that would represent him on from that day forward:

_Legacy._


	5. Chapter 5: Gold

Chapter 5: Gold

"Come over here," Mark urged David in a serious tone. He was sitting on the couch, leaning towards the laptop on his lap, his eyes focused intensely on the screen.

"An international crime syndicate," explained a woman onscreen in a news-anchor voice, "has revealed that _they_ were responsible for kidnapping professional South Korean gamer Lee Young Ho, as they revealed in the following video."

The shot cut to Flash bound and gagged in a chair in a dimly lit room. From somewhere offscreen a voice spoke in Korean while subtitles appeared at the bottom of the screen.

_We have taken one of the most beloved stars in South Korea, and we are demanding that funds be wired to us every month, so long as his fans want him to stay alive._

David's heart skipped a beat. He mentally restated the reality of the situation: _the best Starcraft player in the world is being held for ransom. _As the kidnappers expounded upon their demands, he felt a peculiar sense of loss: it was as though he'd lost something very great that he hadn't even been aware of until it was gone. This was a massive blow to his forebears, to his culture.

"Damn," breathed Mark. "What would they ever want with a Starcraft player? Why not a politician or something?"

David said nothing, silently deciding that Flash must be worth more than a hundred politicians.

As Sean walked through a parking lot late at night, leaving MLG behind him, a passing van surprised him by stopping before it had passed him. The passenger door opened; a black-haired man in sunglasses and a suit smiled at him.

"What is this?" he asked after an uncomfortably long pause. "Are you guys gonna be my bodyguards or something?"

"More or less," replied the man with the unsettling articulacy of a supreme intellect that spoke English flawlessly, but as a second language. "We're giving you a ride home, courtesy of Artosis."

Now he was sure something was off. "I can get home myself," he told the man with a smile. "Thanks."

In response, the man lifted up his sleeve slightly, revealing a handgun.

"_Whoa_," said Sean, speaking loudly in the hopes that someone would hear. "Isn't this something we can talk over?" His heart sank as the man shook his head.

"Not another word from you. Just get in the van."

David was confused and alarmed to discover his Starcraft menu prompting him to take another placement match. He went for a fast expand and quickly overwhelmed his terran opponent before returning to the main screen and widening his eyes at the golden emblem that told him he had moved up a league.

"Mark! Mark! I'm in gold now!"

"Oh, awesome!"

"Yeah, I was winning so many matches, and I _thought_ was going to move up, and then it told me I had a placement match…"

"Yeah, that happens at the start of a new season. Honestly, I'm surprised I'm not in gold with you, given how low I am in platinum."

That night, David watched yet another of Day9's videos, diligently taking notes in a Word document. He imagined himself climbing through up the ranks, getting good enough to meet big names, fighting his way to the top. He had found his calling—or rather, his calling had found him, like a thief in the night, his mind so wholly focused on the game that he hadn't even noticed it becoming a part of his identity.

Sean awoke alarmed and struggling under his sheets. He stopped as he realized he was simply awaking from a nightmare, and allowed himself to finish waking slowly, groggily. As he looked around the unfamiliar room, however, he quickly realized that the nightmare had been very real. It was difficult to say for sure, but the biggest indicator was probably the woman standing over him and pointing a gun at his head.

"Easy," he said, lifting up his hands and shifting into a sitting position, which seemed much more appropriate than lying down when speaking to a stranger with a gun.

"I have orders for stand guard over you," she told him in a thick Russian accent. "You are not to be leaving this place."

"Don't worry," he assured her. "Leaving isn't too high on my priority list right now. You've got _nothing_ to worry about."

During the awkward silence that followed, he studied her face. She was astonishingly beautiful, and strangely familiar. Was she a model? Her expression betrayed some unease, as though her heart wasn't in her work.

"So," said Sean, "is there any particular reason I've been kidnapped, or…?"

"The Starcraft community is being very large," she explained, "and Blizzard and gamers and South Korea will be paying much moneys for hostages, yet the players do not always have bodyguard and are easy for capture."

Sean groaned. "Y'know, I'm not even that famous. Now, that Husky guy, _he's_ the one you really want, what with his songs and appeal to casual gamers and whatnot."

"We are not wanting Husky. America can keeping him."

Sean racked his mind for some way of getting her to drop the gun. Maybe she would hesitate to shoot if he tried to make a run for it? No, he decided, that was too dangerous…

He was surprised to notice a single tear sliding down her cheek, joined quickly by its brethren. She sniffed, trying and failing miserably to keep a straight face.

"What's… wrong?" he asked, not sure what else to say.

"The others… they say will kill my family if you are escaping," she choked. "I not even wanted to being criminal, but they offer so much needed moneys, and soon I am in too many deep. You are last person I ever want to capturing, last person in the _world_, but I have no choices…"

"Well, if they have your family, maybe there's something we can do about that. I mean, maybe you can trick these guys somehow, or"—

"No," she said, "they have too smart. Oh, Sean, Day9, I wish we did not have to meet like this… I wish…"

He jumped back, startled as she dropped the gun and lunged towards him, kissing him hard on the lips.

_She doesn't have the gun anymore, _his brain pointed out. _Now would be a good time to run._

Instead of running, however, he stayed right where he was, and soon her soft hands were caressing his rugged gamer body, and then before he could regroup his mental faculties they were on the bed, and she was whispering that she wanted him (or at least that she "wanting" him), that she dreamt about him every night, and he couldn't help being swayed by the tantalizing scent of her hair, her silky skin, the broken English she kept whispering in his ear…

He let out a voiceless gasp as he felt her skilled Russian fingers slide down his pants and grasp his rapidly hardening gamer cock.

"Maybe we should slow down a little," he offered. "I mean, I don't even know your name…"

"I am call Mariya," she said with a smile. "Now you know."

She resumed kissing him, and over the course of the next minute their clothes were flying everywhere and she was insinuating her sinuous, supple form against his chiseled gamer body.

_Your top priority needs to be getting out of here, _his brain reminded him, growing increasingly frustrated. _You need to leave _now, _while she doesn't have the gun._

She began to nibble on his gamer neck while caressing his gamer chest…

_Just push her off. She's not even that heavy._

She let out soft moans, in time with the gyrations from her hips…

_Remember, this is a life or death situation. You shouldn't take chances. What if the rest of them come back?_

His throbbing gamer cock was inside her; she was practically purring…

_Up. Run. Now._

He let out a gasp, his eyes rolling up into his head as she gently bit his rock-hard gamer nipples…

_You know what? You're on your own. I'm out of here._

"…and I _know_ a lot of people think there's some connection to Flash's kidnapping, but it's a tenuous connection at best, and he's hardly been gone for like a day. It's weird, but nothing to freak out over."

David had stopped walking past his brother the moment he'd heard the name "Day9". Mark glanced up at him, and they exchanged worried looks.

"He's probably right, you know," Mark assured him. "He kind of mentioned it as an afterthought while talking about the rest of MLG. It's no big deal."

David narrowed his eyes. "Why are you watching Husky?"

"Well, he's a good caster. I mean, his videos are pretty entertaining, like he has the songs and stuff…"

"Yeah, but he's just… kinda dumb."

Mark shrugged. "Yeah, I guess I can see that."

As David fell asleep that night, he briefly wondered if something had, in fact happened to Day9. Was it possible that he was being held in a terrorist cell somewhere miles away, being subjected to all kinds of awful tortures?

Sean let out one last stretched-out gamer moan as a powerful burst of gamer cum spurted from his twitching gamer manhood. Mariya leaned in close, and he struggled as he felt something sharp prick his neck, but he quickly realized it was too late.

"I am so sorry," she whispered, "but you need to go back to sleep now. I cannot risk the lives of my family."

As the tranquilizer entered his bloodstream and he was torn unwillingly from conscious thought, his brain had one last thing to say to him:

_Fuck you, Sean._


	6. Chapter 6: Ransom

Chapter 6: Ransom

As the weeks went by, it became clear to David that something had indeed happened to Day9, and that there would be no more dailies for a long time, maybe ever. This didn't stop David from playing his hardest, though—in fact, he started training even more, sensing on some level that there was a new void in the Starcraft community that had to be filled.

_I'm going to make platinum, _he would think to himself, _and then diamond, and then masters, and then grandmaster's. I'm going to make it to the top. _He didn't actually believe this, but he thought it to himself anyway, since it never hurt to daydream.

David quickly got used to playing in gold league. His opponents' play was more solid now, but so was his, and he gradually noticed himself develop a feel for the game's rhythm. At school, he would surreptitiously install Starcraft 2 on the computers and sneak games when he had the chance, always glancing over his shoulder with his left index finger tensed over the Windows key. When the teachers gave lectures, his notes about the Civil War, algebra, or the solar system would melt into strategies against terran, experimental build orders, and number-crunching comparing damage per second to health and resource costs.

And still he would watch gameplay videos—all of Day9's that he could find on YouTube, (there were hundreds), and, grudgingly, a few of Husky's. Remembering the builds became second nature to him: _4 gate, 16 expand, 12 pool_. As he played, he would see the signs and know how to respond. He would play as Protoss and Terran against the computer, so as to better understand both races' builds and their weaknesses. He learned to think of time not in terms of minutes and seconds, but events: a building started, supply increased, a building finished, macro, macro, macro. In battles, too, he refined his skills: he would sweep the zerglings around gracefully, like a curving wave building into an unstoppable whirlpool. He learned his way around an infestor, which could demolish units both big and small.

By the time summer break had begun at his school, David had full confidence that he could get into platinum league. On the day that the new season began, he started the single placement round that would determine his new league, and just as before, he grew increasingly nervous: a cold sweat gripped him, his hands shook, and he could almost hear his heart pounding in his chest. As the match ended with his victory, he let out a long, shuddering sigh, rubbing his eyes. Upon looking at the screen, he froze, and his heart skipped a beat.

He hadn't been placed into platinum.

He'd been placed into diamond.

He let out a sharp cry of elation that attracted Mark's attention. "I did it!" he exclaimed, standing up and slamming his hands on the table in his excitement.

Mark's eyes widened as he saw the screen. _"Diamond? _God damn, David, you're higher than me now!"

"I had no idea that would happen," said David, now staring down at his hands, hands that had taken him so much farther than he'd ever dreamed possible. He reminded his still-reeling brain that this meant he was only two leagues from the top.

Mark clapped his shoulder in congratulations, yanking him back into the real world. "This is awesome! You must be one of the youngest diamond leaguers _ever!"_

For the first time since he'd started playing that day, David allowed himself to fully relax in his chair, still shivering slightly as he rode the high from his incredible accomplishment. _I can really do it,_ he thought to himself. _I can make it to the top._

…

Many miles away in tucked-away corner of another country, a group of soldiers crept through the trees below the night sky. They looked out towards a vast field, in the center of which stood an unarmed man holding a briefcase, standing by an armor car and trying his best not to look terrified. Hidden in his clothes was a sensitive microphone, through which the other soldiers could hear whatever he heard.

At a time that had been arranged weeks ago through untraceable phone calls, the unmistakable sound of a helicopter came from the air, followed by the spotlight it aimed downward towards the lone man.

The hidden troops held their breath as the helicopter landed and its occupants stepped out. They were all dressed in jackets too heavy for this climate, and they all wore sunglasses.

"Ret's see the money," said one of them as he approached the soldier with the briefcase. Slowly, without taking his eyes off his adversaries, he opened it and set it on the ground. A hundred yards away, the soldier's comrades had their guns trained on the terrorists.

"Show us Flash," he said with a quaking voice. With a sneer, the terrorist who had spoken turned to the others and jerked his head, indicating that they should acquiesce. Without a word, they dragged out the pro gamer, who was gagged and bound and had a gun pointed to his head, but showed no outward signs of fear.

The soldier studied him. He was certainly the one they were looking for, no doubt about that. His time in captivity hadn't made him visibly worse for wear—neither his hair and clothes hinted at just how long he had gone without his freedom.

"Oh, by the way," said the terrorist, "I thought we agreed you would come arone."

The soldiers in the brush stiffened. How did he know? As they prepared to charge, a sharp, mechanical hissing sound issued from beneath their feet.

The soldier in the middle of the field whipped around as he heard a sudden _boom_ from the trees. His eyes watered with fear as he saw a huge fireball erupting upward and outward, exactly where the others had been stationed. Shaking, he turned to face the terrorists once again.

"You have not forrowed the terms of our agreement," said their leader, "and so we wirr not be giving you Frash… at reast, not the way you would rike him."

He snapped his fingers, and the soldier flinched, closing his eyes as a gunshot rang through the field. He heard a _thump_. When he dared to open his eyes again, Flash was lying motionless on the ground.

The soldier was certain he was about to die, but the terrorists reentered their helicopter and took off without a word. His legs trembled as he watched them fly away, disappearing into the dark of night.


End file.
